Operation Honey Trap vs The Emperor of the Apocalypse-Chapter 192: Blast our Way Through

"How so?" the Emperor asked Bo, intrigued by where the soldier was going with this.

"Your Majesty sent Major Pittman and his patrol after your women and the Honour Guard who failed to come back. Rutherglen was only there as a tracker. I assume his answer as to why he was the sole survivor is because he went to the tubiàn snakes’ nest but didn’t participate in the fighting?"

"You might be on the right track. But where are you going with this meandering tale, soldier?"

"When I walked the perimeter of that nest after I woke up from that blow to the head, there were no tracks out, only in. I’ll admit I’m not a tracker, so perhaps I might have missed a handful of outbound footprints, if there were only one or two survivors. I was looking for horse tracks or a large group of shoe prints.

I recall Your Majesty said to me at the time I reported the events to you Lord, that they might have retreated inside the church and left later, after I had already woken up and headed back to the boat. So maybe they left later, or maybe I missed their tracks, and they’d already left. Rutherglen, on the other hand, is by all accounts an expert tracker, one of the best."

The Emperor nodded imperceptibly and waved at him to go on.

"How could an expert tracker have missed the signs that some of the Honour Guard left there alive?"

How indeed? thought the Emperor.

And what this private didn’t know, was that he now had some credible accounts that there were women in the rebel group with the former guards.

The description of one of whom, even veiled, sounded remarkably like his jewel, Delphine Chastain...

"How do I know you’re not just here trying to defend yourself by throwing Rutherglen under the bus, Private Ren?"

"Well, he couldn’t say the same of me, Majesty. Logically, if my tracks were already leading back to the boat, whoever was still alive would have come after me. And if they left before me, I can be forgiven for missing some footprints, Rutherglen, on the other hand, cannot."

"What’s in it for you to come here and share these thoughts with me, private?" said the Emperor suspiciously.

"I thought it might give you a lead in the Rebellion, Your Majesty. I’m a loyal soldier, have been since I was thirteen, and you might recall that my father was killed in the Meng Rebellion. I have no love for rebels, and I need to keep my mother and sister safe."

That made sense, the Emperor thought, and there was logic to what he said. How indeed, could the tracker have missed the tracks of multiple people who had clearly escaped with their lives? And his report had categorically stated that there were no survivors.

"Very good, Private Ren. Is that all?"

"It is, Your Majesty. I hope it proves helpful. I won’t take any more of your time."

"Reward him," he gestured languidly to his Chief Eunuch. "Give him some gold and a job in the palace guards."

Bo backed out of the Emperor’s bedroom and turned to leave wiping the sweat that was pouring down his face and finally letting out the breath he didn’t know he’d been holding.

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The mission team thundered north on the smaller roads, steering clear of the highway.

"More pursuers incoming General!" shouted Niko from the back of the pack, Indy back on her own horse now.

"Wolf, Delphi, drop back and support Niko to slow them down," he called.

Wolf and Delphi slowed their horses and joined Niko at the rear. They continued riding while turning and shooting arrows behind them at the closest of the pursuing soldiers.

Delphi had her crossbow which had a longer range, though less stability of aim.

"Wolf, Niko, focus on the closer guys. I’ll see what I can do with the group behind them."

It wasn’t long before they had cleared the road, either shooting soldiers from their horses or driving them off the road to seek cover.

"You’re good. Leave it with me now," said Niko to them both. "I’ll call you back here when they regroup in enough numbers to worry about."

"How are we going to cross the river?" Delphi called to Alton as she rejoined him in the lead.

"We’re going to have to blast our way across" said Alton tensely. "Get Baer up here."

Baer joined them at the front. "General?"

"What have you got left in your goodie bag? We’re going to need to blast our way through the guards on the bridge and then ideally blow the bridges behind us."

"Wow... okay, let me think. Yeah okay, I probably do have enough raw material left. If we use the grenades to blast through the checkpoints and then you can buy me enough time, I can get the explosives together. They won’t topple the bridges, but they’ll stop any significant groups of cavalry from coming through behind us."

"Sounds like a plan," said Alton grimly, dismissing Baer.

"This is going to be touch and go," Alton said to Delphi as they neared the two bridges, "but there’s no other way. If we avoid the bridges and take the long way around, it will give them time to gather in overwhelming numbers."

Delphi nodded her agreement. "I can’t see any other way. We could disappear into the bush, but they’d track us and put more and more soldiers on our tail. At this point, we need to head north faster than they can chase us and avoid the towns with barracks."

Alton looked across at her, his eyes betraying his concern for what they were about to face into.

If he was honest, he probably wouldn’t feel this way if it was just him and his men, but he hated to drag the girls into a pitched battle like this.

And despite Delphi’s competence, every fibre of his being rebelled at the thought of putting her in harm’s way when he just wanted to protect her.

As the bridges came into sight, Alton pulled the team up.

"Listen closely because this is going to need to be done perfectly if we’re to have any hope of pulling it off."